3Jaune sat nervously in the large room, silently awaiting the doctor to finish reviewing his observations on the recent checkup.
"Well mister Arc, from what I see there is no reason to prevent you from using a V.R. helmet. You reacted well to the controlled stimulant and your motor functions seem to be in perfect order."《Doctor》
"Well that's a relief. I wouldn't want my sister's gift to be wasted. "《Jaune》
The V.R. (or virtual reality) head gear was a relatively new piece of technology. Through it people were able to experience an incredibly detailed virtual world. Unfortunately there were several complications with it.
Because of the intense realism some individuals actually believed they could do I.R.L. The things in the V.R. world. This caused a lot of deaths due to neglected of the natural limitations of the mortal body. Such as jumping out of the top of a 30 meter building, running into traffic, and even developing a god complex. That's why a psychologist needed to examine you before you were allowed to play.
Additionally because the head gear disabled motor functions, the possibility of never being able to move again existed. That's why a test run in a controlled environment was required. Overall there weren't really enough benefits to owning a V.R. kit, especially since currently there were only three applications available. One MMO, a social media and a sandbox world builder.
"Well then mister Arc I've submitted your results to the server, so your account should be active in about 30 minutes. So have fun and remember to play in moderation. "《Doctor》
"I will sir. Have a nice day."《Jaune》
Jaune left the room and with the bare minimum of caution, dashed towards his home. His family were descendants of lesser nobles which earned their status with exceptional achievements during the war. While their place on the social ladder wasn't particularly hight they were famous for the large amount of land which they owned.
In short the Arcs were wealthy.
The house was nothing short of a mansion, even for a family of ten along with several servants the house always felt empty.
Through the main door, up the stairs and down the hallway to the left stood an oakwood door leading to his room. It was spacious, but not too large. In it lay one large double bed, a simple desk with a laptop computer next to the window, one bookshelf with his textbooks and comics, a wardrobe with a mirror, and a mandatory armour rack with a full set of armour on it. But the most out of place furniture was the massage chair looking device that was next to his bed. This was the V.R. comfort, cutting edge technology for any V.R. user.
Jaune didn't wait much. In a matter of seconds he'd sat on the chair. Adjusted it, and turned on the device.
"Alright let's try this thing out."
Before he knew it he was standing in a void space. Normally he'd have to go through a tutorial on the way everything worked, but he'd already done that earlier during his checkup.
"Log in as Jaune Arc. Password: password! "
[Scanning... . . Login accepted, welcome Jaune Arc.]
"Launch Remnant Online!"
[Launching]
For a brief moment Jaune traveled in a hyperspace like manner before appear in front of himself. This was the character creation menu. Here he could customise his avatar anyway he wanted to, save for the gender.
"Alright. Now what do I want to be?
Human? Nah, to generic. No weaknesses, but no strengths.
Faunus? No, to mainstream. Night vision, but weaker constitution.
Dwarf? Good crafting, strong, night vision, but short, weak to cold and can't receive blessings.
Elve? That's the exact opposite of a dwarf, but no.
Orc, no. Half-gian… no.
Undead? Weak to sunlight and holy, slow xp gain, but… subrace options, no fatigue, immune to cold, poison, disease, suffocation and mental damage.
Maybe. 《Select 》"
The avatar looked… dead to say the least.
The default subrace was 《Living Dead》, which removed parts of flesh and exposed the bones. If he wanted to Jaune was able to customise how much flesh was missing and where.
"Ugh. Gross. So I can be a zombie, a skeleton or Ghoul. What's the difference between 《Ghoul》and 《Living Dead》?"
[Ghouls are the closest to living out of the three. As such they are the least vulnerable to to sunlight and holy damage. However because of that their hunger bar still depletes over time, but they don't suffer drawbacks from less than 25% hunger.]
"Huh… well that's overly convenient. Why even take any other subrace?"
[Unlike the living dead ghouls or skeletons can't be resurrected through necromancy or holy magic. Making them less useful during raids or boss fights. Also the evolved forms of ghouls 《Vampire》 and 《Dread Knight》 have a different hunger mechanic called 《Thirst》Which can only be sated by drinking blood, but to compensate for that they can easily reach the highest stats in the game.]
"So strong, but troublesome. Ah who cares it seems fun."
Jaune selected the 《Ghoul》 subrace and began customising the character. Undead has several Unique options when it came to looks, like the missing flesh and bones. For his avatar he simply chosen shoulder length gray hair, black sclera with red irises and pale skin.
Next came the gear, The system gave the boy 100 gear points to spend on starting equipment. Right now his avatar was just standing there in some plain underware.
"Ok I'm going to need clothes armour and a weapon. So sword and shield are a given- Holy hell! The standard shield costs 50 GP! And the armour goes for 10 GP a piece. I guess I need to cut some corners. "
[Notification! As this is your first time creating a character as well as purchasing the collectors edition version of the game, along as several other bonuses, it is recommended that you open those up first before purchasing your gear.]
"This gift just keeps on getting better. Alright how do I do that? "
Several gift wrapped boxes appeared next to him.
"Jeez if had made an unboxing video for the Internet I'd be rolling in subscribers. "
Opening the first one he was greeted with several fireworks and an achievement message.
[Congratulations! For pre ordering the limited collectors edition you receive the premium starter set. This customiseable pack can be given to all created characters with no risk of running out.]
A window popped up next to Jaune with a list of possible choices.
《Mount/Wings》
《100 [Silver/GP]》
《XP Accessorie/Random Trait》
《Vanity item (random)》
《Drop rate Accessorie/Random perk》
《Pocket Dimension (bag)/
Replenishing potion (HP)》
Apparently (Random) items were locked to a character so that you can't change if you don't like them. Mounts needed to be leveled up separate from the character unlike wings, but they were faster and more useful later in the game. Traits were cool but you rarely go a good one. And when it came to perks they were just balanced traits. So luck would decide weather the game was easy or not.
"Do I feel lucky? Yes I do!"
》 Wings.
》 Silver.
》 (Random) Trait [True Vampire].
》 (Random) Perk [Strong Soul I ].
》 [Pocket Dimension].
》 (Random) Vanity [Horns].
"Well looks like I made the right choice.
[Strong Soul I ] (Rare) gives 10% max [Aura], whatever the hell that is. But [True Vampire] (Mythical) let's me gain and level up perks and skills whenever I eat the mobs or players who have them."
After a quick customisation of the horns and wings Jaune opened up another box.
[Congratulations on creating your first character ever, as such you have been awarded the following] 《 [Lucky Ticket] × 2》
《 [Character Remake] × 1》
《 [Dust (pure)] × 100》
"The hell do I need dust for? Doesn't matter let's just use the tickets." Tickets were used as a random reward gamble. The rewards were usually crafting items or money, but if you were lucky you could get some cheat level items.
"[Use]." The game let out a ringing sound before a notification appeared.
[Vanity skill [Re-texture] has been unlocked for all characters.]
"A vanity skill? Those are a thing? Whatever, [Use]."
Just like before a notification appeared.
[Growing weapon :》Bastard sword (Soulbound) (Legendary)× 1 has been unlocked. You may assign this weapon to your current character or save it for another.]
"Hell Yea! A Sword. That saves me 25 GP. [Assign]!
All right now all that's left is theses two boxes from the expansion and another for buying the frigging chair. "
From the expansion Jaune got a random item and perk.
》 [Rusty Circlet](Artifact)(Soulbound).
》 [Twisted Strength] (Legendary)(Soulbound).
As part of the expansion (Artifacts) could be excavated. Unless you get them appraised they are just low level headgear, which was still better than the starter one, but if you do appraise them, the become incredibly valuable.
From owning the V.R. kit he got more [Dust], a pet dragon (purely cosmetic), a full set of
[Gentelman's Attire] costume and more lucky tickets.
"I haven't even started playing and I'm already op.
But I think I've spent enough time with this. What was I even doing? Gear management! That's right. I completely forgot."
Even with the new items the standard heavy armour was far too expensive. In the end Jaune settled for black leather full body armour with a steel plate chest guard, a steel shield and gauntlets.
"Damn these are expensive. How are people supposed to afford a full set of warrior gear."
At this point, other than the shape of the face, the avatar looked nothing like Jaune. It looked more like a mid level NPC rather than a player.
With the completion of the character he was greeted with another message.
[Congratulations on making your first Avatar, as a final necessity we will assign a random trait and perk before you can enter the game.]
Two wheels appeared in front of him and began spinning. The pressure was now on. All of the work he put in this, could be render useless in a matter of seconds. Finally, in what felt like forever, the wheels stopped on the following perk and trait.
》[Reckless](Uncommon) Increased attack speed, but lower defense.
》[Vampiric](Rare) Mele and unarmed attacks restore HP.
"Well good thing I went for high defense. But doesn't this type of RNG kind of ruin the whole game?"
With the character finally done Jaune logged out of the game.
"Better eat and go to the bathroom first."
It was dangerous to begin playing without covering all your basic needs. Eating in game doesn't feed you IRL. And you don't feel compelled to use the bathroom.
Usually Jaune would ask the servants to prepare something, but since it was a national holiday there was absolutely no one in the mansion other than himself and it would remain that way for the entire weekend. So he did like any sensible person and ordered a pizza.